View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Juned Patel captured this uncommon omega dawn from Norfolk, UK, on June 5. Juned wrote: “This phenomenon known as an ‘omega sun’ as a result of it resembles the Greek letter omega. The precise sun is the disk on the high. The underside disk, which seems like an omega, is an inverted picture of the sun as a result of refraction. The mirage happens as a result of daylight refracting by a layer of hotter, much less dense air close to the ocean’s floor.” Thanks, Juned! An omega sundown or dawn rationalization from Les Cowley, beneath.
Because the sun descends a second sun rises from the water. Ultimately the 2 be part of at a crimson hued vertically stretched ‘stem.’ Jules Verne likened this look to an Etruscan vase. The stem shortens and thickens till the 2 suns appear as if a Greek letter omega …
The decrease sun shouldn’t be a mirrored image from the water. It’s an ‘inferior mirage’, so named not from any poverty in look however as a result of the miraged sun is beneath the ‘actual’ one. The decrease sun is an inverted picture. It’s produced by refraction by a layer of hotter and fewer dense air near the ocean floor. The discus form is a mixture of the higher limb of the erect sun and an inverted picture of it beneath.
Omega sundown from 2015
Josh Blash caught this omega stage of an inferior mirage sundown on November 27, 2015 at Venice Seaside, California. Josh additionally identified that Carl Sagan as soon as mentioned: “It does no hurt to the romance of the sundown to know a bit of bit about it.” Visit Josh on Facebook.
Backside line: Omega sundown seen over Venice Seaside, California in November, 2015.
Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio sequence in 1991 and based EarthSky.org in 1994. Previous to that, she had labored for the College of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio sequence. Right this moment, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this web site. She has gained a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, together with having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she gained the Training Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the biggest group {of professional} astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a power for good on this planet and a significant device for the twenty first century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like internet hosting a giant international celebration for cool nature-lovers,” she says.
